The Culling: A New Edition In The Battle Royale Genre

The Culling, which is an under the radar battle-royale survival game from indie developer Xaviant is essentially Hunger Games, the game. The Culling is a 16 player fight to the death situation where one player emerges victorious at the end of it all.

The games description details, “as a contestant in the deadly game of The Culling, you must explore, scavenge items, craft weapons, and build traps that will enable you to slay your fellow contestants and emerge victorious before the end of the round. Only with the cunning, skill, and a little luck will you be able to prevail and survive the match.”

The Culling supports free-for-all or even team-based play styles with crafting, scavenging of items and trap building. At this point in time there seems to be 24 melee weapons like tomahawks, meat cleavers and tasers, as well as ranged weapons including firearms and poisonous blow darts.

The payment model The Culling utilizes seems to employ in-game currency called Func (Flexible Universal Nano-Compound) which is spent on crafting items, opening special chests and calling in airdrops. PC Gamer writer wrote in an article that the Steam description for the game states that Func is gained through exploration and combat, “but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it purchasable with real money as well.”

Although it may appear The Culling stands amongst many additions in a battle royale genre with other classics like H1z1, “King of the Kill”, and Ark: Survival of the Fittest, Xaviant described their game as, “the first stand-alone entry in the battle royale genre”.

“Our goal is to not only for The Culling to be the genre leader, but also to grow into a popular e-sport,” the developer in a statement on Steam.

“While those are lofty goals for a small indie studio like ours, our team is staffed with industry veterans and we know we’re up to the task. The initial heavy-lifting is already done. We are confident that we have a solid core game (we know because out whole team plays the latest build together for at least an hour every day).”
“I asked a small, talented team to come up with their dream game and gave them the autonomy to build it. The Culling is a result of that effort.”

The closed alpha started the weekend beginning February 26 for Twitch streamers like summit1g and Fairlight_Excalibur.

“Launching a closed alpha will allow the community to have an active role in The Culling’s development, Xaviant founder and CEO McMain said in a statement. “The feedback gathered from the test will ensure that we are able to deliver the reliable and balanced experienced our players deserve.”

The game is set to release in full in 2017, but don’t worry Early Access for the game happens on March 8.

At this point even the pricing for The Culling has been confirmed at $15 when it launches through the Early Access. Also, anyone wanting to buy the game between March 8-14 will mean they will be allocated a 10 percent discount to the $15 allotted price, bringing it down to $13.50.

Take a look at The Culling Announcement Trailer below and tell us what you think on our official Twitter accounts @GeorgiaDanaG and @Hackinformer